The Art of Counting Years like Minutes
by Bullshifters
Summary: Simon was expecting Clary to be ancient, her wrinkled hand clutching Simon's as she passed away, somehow grieving and yet knowing it was inevitably happening. But we don't always get what we expect. SimonxClary. Rated T to be safe, One shot.


**First Mortal Instruments story, purely because I was so ecstatic that Robert Sheehan was going to be Simon.**

**I'm only reading the fourth book now so sorry if any of the info is inaccurate :)**

**Read and Review!**

* * *

It's been a day since Clary died.

Possibly because of the events the day previous, Simon can't say a word. He was expecting her to grow old and senile and he could tease her about being ancient. Then they would sit for hours just talking when she would say to him that she was going to die soon. He would beg her to hold on and she would laugh her little tinkling laugh and shake her head fondly at her best friend, her mouth devoid of teeth.

He knew Shadowhunters could live far longer than humans. They could live into their hundreds, and have the glamour of appearing younger.

But Clary was 43.

Simon was 43 also, and had grown zilch since he was 16. He was still a dark eyed, light skinned lanky teenager, his hands too big for his arms, his stomach too big for his head. Simon expected to see Clary slip away sitting by her bedside, clutching onto her withered hand, her wizened face staring at him kindly as he cried silently as the light died from her eyes. He expected to grieve, but he expected… to expect it.

What he wasn't expecting was a phone call at 10 in the evening, telling him that Clary had taken her own life.

No you could say he wasn't expecting that.

* * *

It's been 20 years since Clary passed away.

Simon never understood when people said passed away. Especially when it was as sudden and vicious as it was for most. He was hungry. Too hungry... He gulped down his wine in the fancy restaurant, the suit he had paid a lot for hanging off his pubescent frame. He narrowed his eyes, and drank more. Happy fucking anniversary Clary… Thank you for ruining the next twenty years of his life, and the many more to come.

Or giving him the thought that possibly he was special enough to say goodbye to.

No note, no letter, no damn sticky note taped to the fridge. He gripped the glass stem in his hand, the liquid spilling onto the white tablecloth in his inner anguish. They found her curled in the bath, the way she used to curl in his arms for hours sobbing her heart out.

He would tell her she would get through it.

She didn't believe him.

He ordered another bottle of wine with a twist of his wrist and an odd look from the waiter. So he was toasting the 20 years of misery he had felt. Suddenly his eyes darkened more, rage coursing through his veins. Later he would kill his first human and suck the mundane dry, after shattering the wine glass in his shaking hand, downing another 2 bottles of wine and leaving a lousy tip.

* * *

It's been 75 years since Clary took her own life.

Everyone Simon knew when he was a human was dead, everyone he truly cared about dug six feet under. Sometimes he wants to dig a hole so deep he could never claw his way back out into the world like he did a lifetime ago.

Simon knows he should find other vampires, but he's fallen out with them all, unable to comprehend the idea of ever trusting someone again, let alone loving them. He can't stand anyone but the young girls who sometimes ended up his victim if he flicked his hair in the right direction.

Clary had slit her wrists ten minutes after hanging up the phone with Simon. She had told him that she was feeling fine, that she was going to have a bath and go to bed. There were no ominous tone, no hidden meanings, no deep down feeling of dread creeping up Simon's spine telling him that this was not right.

He's outside a dark alley, after having disposed of another body. He never knows what to do with himself when he's in these moods. He decides to go out and drown his sorrows in more blood.

* * *

It's been 200 years since Clary killed herself.

Simon is standing over a crumbling grave, his eyes dark and murderous. He has avoided this place for 200 years, choosing to stay near Clary's grave most weeknights, but never trailing near here. In Idris, the Downworlders and Shadowhunters pass by like they were always one people. One race.

No one knows who he is.

They have forgotten him in time.

He is the Daylighter.

No one knows that he, Simon, was in fact a vampire in broad daylight glaring over a crumbled grave in the meadows of Idris. They buried his body above ground instead of the City of Bones out of respect. Simon spat on his grave, to balance the respect with disrespect.

God, he had always disliked Jace.

But fuck, did he hate him now.

The damn man had gotten himself killed in routine demon hunting, tearing Clary's heart apart. Simon tried his hardest to piece it back together, putting everything he had into making her feel whole again. Maybe, just maybe, she would be happy with just him this time. He could never settle with anyone else. Because he loved her.

Only her.

He kicked the grave and walked away, feeling burning stares into his back and hearing curious whispers of why someone would kick the grave of someone who died 200 years ago.

* * *

It's been 500 years since Clary ripped Simon's heart to pieces.

Simon's rage had left years ago, and now he was left with a dark irrepressible depression that sucked him under the surface of his skin. He hid on appearances, people only knowing him to see as that kid that they swore they've seen all their life but never changed.

Simon sleeps in any place he can find, kills anything he can find that he can get away with and speaks to no one.

He can't. He won't.

The image of Clary floating in her own clotted blood, her hair as red as the water, her pale skin relaxed of all the tension that had built up since Jace's death permanately tattooed on the back of his eyes.

Clary was selfish to leave Simon with no way of moving on, no goodbye, stripping him down to his bare naked soul, leaving nothing to cover himself with but grief and indifference.

Simon stands outside the bagel shop which opened last week, eyeing the crowd passing by. He catches a flash of red and his neck cracks as he strains to see the bright mob of hair.

She appears again, wandering aimlessly. He takes in her waxy complexion, the dark blue veins protruding from her thin papery skin, her shock of vibrant red hair, her dark green eyes. In one way she looks nothing like Clary, and in another she is everything to him.

He pushes himself through the crowd and catched the girl by the wrist, propelling her into the alley nearby.

Her fangs immediately slip from their sheaths and he takes her in, drinks up her image.

'What do you want from me?'

'Hello.' Simon clears his throat, his voice very hoarse from not speaking for weeks.

'Well?' Her attitude was puncturing Simon's heart with the undeniable familiarity.

'You just remind me of someone… that's all'

The two vampires regard each other steadily before Simon sticks his hand out and the girl daintily takes it smiling slightly. Simon would be damned (or more so) if he let this one slip through his fingers.

* * *

**Tell me what you think! I know it's a bit morbid but unfortunately I find it more interesting to write! **


End file.
